


Love and Death

by 6purplecats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hogwarts AU, Lydia is 1/4th banshee, all about Stydia, but Scott and Allison make appearances, one-shot/drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/6purplecats/pseuds/6purplecats
Summary: That someone like Lydia, whose grandmother was a banshee, is approached with caution by fellow Hogwarts students is to be expected. So why does a boy she doesn't even know act like it's cool?orThree times Stiles casually brings up Lydia's banshee ancestry, and she falls in love with him a little more each time.





	Love and Death

**Author's Note:**

> It's a Hogwarts AU!! Obviously banshee lore in HP is very different from banshee lore in TW, but I took some liberties and found a middle ground. Lydia's grandmother was a full banshee, so she has banshee blood but is only 1/4th banshee herself.

Lydia had heard all about Hogwarts before she had ever set foot in the castle. So, there wasn’t much there to surprise her anymore. She was amazed and delighted by the imposing silhouette of the castle, the ceiling in the Great Hall, the moving staircases, and the magnificent Ravenclaw tower, but she wasn’t surprised. Her friend Allison gasped at everything she saw, and Lydia gasped along with her, but more so because everything she had only heard and read about was now right in front of her.

She expected to be amazed and wowed, but not caught off guard at Hogwarts. And yet, after only one day of classes, she was.

She wondered why a noticeable part of their year mostly stayed out of her way. She would sometimes catch someone throwing a quick glance her way that she could never decipher, but it didn’t feel friendly. Then, she found out what it was. Apprehension. The slightest hint of fear. They knew about her grandmother.

 As it turned out, one of Lydia’s classmates’ father worked with her mother in the ministry, but she didn’t find that out until later. The first thing she noticed was that most of the other first years were all too happy to stay away from someone who was descended from a creature seen as a death omen. Later on, when she was older, she would look back on it less harshly. She would think to herself that maybe, if she had been in their shoes, she would have done the same. But at the time she was 11 years old, and it was all completely unfair.

So, when people brought up the subject with her, softly and tentatively, she snapped at them. It was the most effective way she knew to shield herself.

Only one person managed to bring it up to her without getting snapped at. A remarkable feat, as Lydia certainly didn’t stop herself from snapping at him later in their lives. But this was the first time he spoke to her, and the first time she spoke to him, and there was no snapping involved, even if the subject of her banshee ancestry was.

It was right before a potions lesson, which the Ravenclaws shared with the Hufflepuffs. Lydia enjoyed the subjects she didn’t share with the Gryffindors considerably less, as she had to miss Allison during them. She hadn’t made any good friends yet in her own house, so the period before class started wasn’t usually spent with much conversation. Instead, she was leaning against a wall, perfectly relaxed until she heard someone ask: “Are you really a banshee?”

The voice had been just a bit too loud, coming from a boy with a wide grin and bright eyes, who stood just a bit too close to Lydia when he spoke to her. The way he bounced on the balls of his feet gave Lydia the idea he might have put chocolate frogs in his shoes, and his fingers were constantly fidgeting with the strap of the book bag. Overall, Lydia’s first impression of this boy was that he seemed incredibly hyperactive.  
But maybe that was part of the reason she didn’t snap at him.

He was the opposite of scared or tentative. He didn’t approach the subject of her banshee ancestry with fear. He just seemed… curious. So, against everyone’s expectations – including Lydia’s own – she just answered the question.

“No, my grandmother was.”

The boy only looked more interested as he nodded. “Does that mean you can do the stuff banshees can do? Like predict death and kill people with a scream?”

This question irked Lydia a little. Not because of the way it was asked or anything else to do with the boy, but because she didn’t know the exact answer to it. So far, she hadn’t had any indication that she could do anything special because of her ancestry. The thought of saying that however, was not incredibly tempting to Lydia, if only because she felt the boy would then lose interest in her. But she couldn’t lie to him either.

“I _can_ scream really loudly… It just doesn’t kill anyone.” She angled her chin upwards a bit, daring anyone to make fun of her.

Unexpectedly, her statement was met with giggles from her classmates, but they didn’t sound mocking. They were laughing, not at her, but with her, and this made Lydia feel strangely happy. The boy’s interest in her hadn’t faded either, if the way his grin broadened was any indication. He opened his mouth, no doubt to ask even more questions, but just then the potions professor opened the door to the classroom and they were all expected to enter quietly. Lydia wondered if the boy would have actually managed to do so if it hadn’t been for another Hufflepuff boy dragging him away by the sleeve. She only just picked up their hushed conversation.

“Come one, Stiles, we don’t want another detention!”  
“Wait- Scott-!”

And just like that, that had been the first time Stiles spoke to Lydia, and Lydia spoke to Stiles. They actually did not become friends immediately after that. Quite some time passed at Hogwarts before Scott started hanging out with Allison a lot, and by association Lydia started seeing more of Stiles.  
But she never forgot that first interaction. Despite all the ways Stiles got under her skin afterwards, all their petty arguments and all the annoyed glances they threw at each other. That first interaction had caused Lydia to have a form of respect for Stiles she didn’t quite have for anyone else. And this was very apparent, perhaps, to everyone _but_ the two of them. It would be a while before they figured it out…

 

* * *

 

 OWL season was torture, for anyone whose name wasn’t Lydia Martin. Lydia, as one of the only students in her year, it seemed, had full confidence that she would do well in her tests. Perhaps that was the reason her friends were so adamant she help them study. They were currently in the library, along with the entire student body, pouring over books and writing feverishly. The sound of quills on parchment filled the room to the point where it was only just bearable. The librarian threw glances at the students every now and then, no doubt ready to throw out any troublemakers at the slightest disturbance of peace.

After a little over half an hour of studying, Stiles groaned loudly and made a show of throwing his quill down on the table. For good measure, he waved his hand around as if he was trying to shake out a cramp.  
“Hasn’t anyone in the magic community heard of ballpoint pens?”

His exclamation was quickly met with several shushing sounds, the loudest of which had come from the librarian. He didn’t respond to them directly, but dropped his volume considerably when he turned to Lydia.

“Lydia, you can predict death.” It was true Lydia’s banshee ancestry had started expressing itself over the past couple years, but as Stiles had stated it more than asked it, Lydia didn’t think a response was necessary. She merely raised an eyebrow, urging him to get to the point. “Is there any chance I might meet my untimely demise _before_ the OWLs start?”

Lydia smiled sweetly at him and made sure her response was coated with just the right amount of sarcasm. “Well, I haven’t felt anything. But if you want, I could throw you off the astronomy tower.”

Stiles grinned broadly, ignoring her sarcasm as always, and stood up. “Perfect! Let’s do it.” He was so eager, Lydia would have believed – if she hadn’t known him any better – that he would have jumped off himself, had Scott not pulled him back down into his seat.

“No one is throwing anyone off the astronomy tower,” he said sternly. “We’ll do fine. We just have to… study.” He almost sounded convincing, but on the word ‘study’ his expression turned pained and his voice near-desperate, which somehow affected his credibility.

They spent weeks in that library, studying while being slowly overtaken by the pain and desperation Scott had exhibited on uttering that one word: ‘study.’ Scott would often be caught daydreaming with his head on his palm, staring out the window or at Allison. Stiles continuously flexed his hands while muttering like a crazy man about the ways in which a ballpoint pen would save his fingers. On top of that, at the end of each of their study sessions, before trekking back to their respective common rooms, Stiles would plead with Lydia that she would be doing him a _favour_ by throwing him off the astronomy tower.  
Through it all, Allison seemed strangely calm and focused, until the very last day before the tests were to begin. Just an hour before the library was to close, she jumped up, slammed her book close and dashed into the hallway before anyone could react. Scott went after her after a moment of bewildered staring, but it wasn’t until the next morning, during their first OWL, that any of them saw her again.

In the end, somewhat miraculously, they did all pass their OWLs.

From that point onwards however, whenever an inconvenience crossed their paths, Stiles would look over at Lydia and mouth ‘Astronomy tower’ at her, and Lydia would try – and fail – to hold back her laughter. And she could tell that made him happy. And maybe that made her a little happy too, even she wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

 

* * *

 

 For a school filled with magic, Hogwarts had very few comfortable spaces with privacy. As a child, Lydia hadn’t much minded or cared about this, but as she and the people around her grew older, so did their curiosity grow for things that should really only be done behind closed doors.  
The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw common rooms were incredibly far apart, and a trek from one to the other often felt like it took hours. However, situated on one of the middle floors, almost exactly halfway between the Hufflepuff common room in the basement, and Ravenclaw tower, there was a broom cupboard. A broom cupboard Lydia knew better than she’d like to admit.

She and Stiles spent time there regularly, when they were in need of an escape from the boisterous castle. It was something that had started in sixth year, and had carried on well into seventh. Broom cupboard visits consisted of chaste kisses and wandering hands, but also deep conversation and opportunities for Lydia to look at Stiles, really look at him. Of course, Stiles being Stiles, it was quite often that he would interrupt anything they were doing to express a thought that was on his mind, letting it tumble out of him as if he couldn’t contain it any longer.

“What if you can predict the death of relationships?”

Lydia leaned back a bit, to make sure Stiles could properly see the frown on her face. “What are you talking about?”  
“I mean, how do you know you can only predict when _people_ die? Have you ever tried predicting other stuff? Like say, a phone – you know, the muggle thi- yeah you know what a phone is –  or a trend, or a-“  
“A relationship?”  
“Exactly.”

Lydia sighed. The most confusing of all was that questions like these were both what irked her about Stiles and what got her interested in him in the first place. She let her eyes wander into his, to find out he was awaiting her answer with a strangely heavy air around him. Whatever she was going to say next seemed more important to him than Lydia would have expected. So she closed her mouth before letting the witty reply she had thought of leave her lips.

Instead, she took a deep breath, and let her hands find his, not breaking their eye contact.

“Stiles, I can barely predict when people die. So no, I cannot predict relationships. But even if I could…” She tried to send what she wanted to say to him in more than just words. He had always been sincere in his love towards her, the least she could now was return the favour. Her eyes, her touch, she wanted all of it to convey this to him: “You have nothing to worry about. _We_ have nothing to worry about.”

The corners of Stiles’s mouth rose a bit, and his eyes brightened up. “You think so?”

Lydia squeezed his hands, then kissed him, knowing he had gotten his answer from the way he kissed her back.

Lydia still hated that broom cupboard. She would for the rest of her time at Hogwarts. It was cramp, uncomfortable, dark… But she loved the person she shared it with, even if they did drive each other up the wall every now and then. One day, they would share more than just that broom cupboard, and that was all that mattered.

She knew he felt the same way when the softest, most intimate “I love you” was whispered in between kisses. She was – and had been, for a long time – ready to admit it.

“I love you too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot of fun to write! God knows I miss my Stydia babies now that Teen Wolf ended, but I hope I can write them a lot in the future!  
> If you enjoy this AU, please let me know! I currently have quite some ideas for other things I can do with this AU, so leave a comment if you enjoyed and if you'd like more. Comments are literally what keep me going.  
> If you want a cheesy one-shot like this featuring a different paiting I could see if I can make that happen as well! Overall I'm just excited about Teen Wolf at the moment and will always be excited about the Harry Potter world~!


End file.
